Chains Cannot Tie a Soul
by Ommallaredpanda
Summary: Vader has broken loose of his Master, but not in time to save one child. He races across the galaxy, frantic, to protect the other. Can he get there in time? AKA: Just an angsty af drabble I wrote cos I was bored and had free time. Hoping to make a collection of these; they're fun to write! All aboard the Emotions Express!


Luke had died maybe two months ago. Vader hadn't been keeping track, really. Well, he _had_. It was fifty six days since his son's Light had been swept from the galaxy.

It was also fifty six days since Vader stormed from the bridged of _Executor_, boarded a shuttle and took off into space. He hadn't stepped foot on an Imperial vessel afterward, and the Emperor seemed to devote about an hour or two a day of his personal time into hunting down his runaway weapon. If Vader hadn't ripped the tracking implant from his neck, it wouldn't have taken long for him to be located, captured and disciplined (_tortured_, a distant part of himself whispered). Still, the slick feeling of his master's power trawling the galaxy was disturbing. It reminded him of the _creature_ that stood between him and his last remaining family.

Vader didn't even know how Luke had been killed. Possibly the Emperor. Maybe a lucky shot from some Stormtrooper. Even thinking on it hurt, and an investigation was impossible.

One of his children was dead (_killed_), and he would not leave the other undefended.

That was what Vader had escaped to do. The Force pulled him from one end of the known universe, and sometimes beyond, to the other over and over. Each time, he was slightly closer. Rebel bases, always empty when he reached them, became steadily less derelict and dusty as he chased her, until he arrived amidst ruins and fire. Still abandoned, yet smouldering with a battle that had ended perhaps a day or two ago. Every time, he would investigate each body, not trusting himself to check with the Force. He had to do it with his own eyes.

As Vader pursued his daughter, every spare moment was spent bettering himself. Lightsabre practise, inventing and installing new prosthetics, improving the shuttle, or stealing a new one each time he landed on a planet and so on. It was all for her. What if he couldn't help her when he found her due to some incompetence? It wouldn't do.

Eventually, he could walk around without the heavy weight of the durasteel pressing him down. New prosthetics ensured a full range of movement, and it was no longer necessary to use the Force for finer gestures. The sense of freedom that came with even the simplest things his improving health entailed was breath-taking. Each lungful of fresh air washed over him like cool water amidst Tatooine's desert wastes.

But, on the fifty sixth standard rotations since Luke's death, Vader arrived on time.

He shot out of hyperspace, sitting, taught as a bowcaster, scanning the planet beneath him with both the Force and his eyes. For the first time, the subtle shifting of TIEs and X-wings were visible; in the upper atmosphere and wheeling into space. Whatever battle that was taking place, it had started long ago, and was beginning to reach its end. Even as Vader watched, large Mon Calamari shuttles hurtled away from the white planet, snapping into hyperspace the moment they could.

Vader reached out to each one, searching frantically for a familiar presence. He didn't know _what_ she would feel like, now that he knew who she was. Would she be different? Would he be able to tell how so alike _her_ she was? But, with a dreadful certainty, the Sith piloted his shuttle towards the surface even as he scanned the surrounding space. She wouldn't be in one, he knew. She would be one of the last to leave.

Oh, she was just like her mother. How did he not see it? How had he been so _blind_?!

He clamped down on those thoughts, smashing them into a small, locked box in the corner of his mind. _Later_. That could be dealt with later. Once his daughter was safe, and all her enemies _razed to the ground_.

A lesser pilot would have crashed and burned long before Hoth's surface. Despite Vader's expert piloting, he still took a few hits. Even then the multiple upgrades he had installed were the only thing that kept the ship from imploding under the stress of enduring both heavy fire _and_ a rough entry into the atmosphere.

Eventually, he touched down (crashed, really). Snow softened the impact as Vader was sent tumbling from the cockpit, his armour denting under the pressure. Seconds later, he reared onto his feet, shaking the compacted crystals, crushed into ice, from him.

All about there was evidence of Imperial invasion. Above Vader, the roof had been smashed inwards, both by laser fire and his own, masterfully on-target crash landing. Uniform boot prints identified maybe fifty Stormtroopers. Every so often, there was a mound of pink-ish snow. Each one of these received a cursory, dread-filled check, followed promptly by relief.

Vader, after taking in his surroundings, stood, isolated in the centre of the clearing. His ship a wreck behind him, armour hanging on (if only barely). His signature mask, whilst still recognisable, no longer covered his entire face. Blood had begun to trickle from where a shard of durasteel had grazed his shoulder, the piece itself still wedged into the line it had cut in the Sith's armour. Vader plucked it out and dropped it to the side, eyes distracted.

_Surely_, he had to be close to her? And certainly, he should be able to sense her? In Luke's last moments, the ones that had shot across half the galaxy and speared straight through what remained of Anakin's heart, he had _felt_ her. _Felt_ how, in the wake of that bright Light's absence, a tenuous family bond had snapped, causing his daughter to cry out in anguish, automatically seeking her brother. Felt how she had only found Vader instead, oppressive Dark weight huddled against the last point of Luke's burning Light. _Felt_ her. _Known her_, in that split second. Enough that, he hoped _oh so much_, that he could track her with her Force presence.

And, after long, strenuous seconds, he did.

It was a just a flicker of sudden surprise at the icy tendrils he sent out, shoved to the back of conscious mind, but that was enough.

His daughter was on Hoth.

His daughter was in Echo Base.

His daughter was in _pain_.

Vader took off. Every item of armour that he did not strictly require was shed. It was _heavy_, that durasteel plating. Heavy meant slow, Obi-Wan had drilled into him. Slow meant death, countless Clone War battlefields had taught him. Maybe not his own death, in this case, but certainly one far more important.

He shot through corridors like a whirlwind, trusting the Force to direct him through the slippery tunnels. Each time he came upon a group of people, Rebels or Imperials, it did not matter; he took the path of least resistance.

If that meant leaping clear over their heads, Vader could almost fly. If that meant mercilessly hacking them into pieces, they almost seemed to fall apart under his unrelenting attack.

Hours seemed to pass, each movement slower than a formal Imperial Senate dinner. As he grew closer, his daughter's pain didn't ease or diminish, but her presence grew stronger, guiding him onwards. Feet pounding, heart racing, and even his breaths picking up speed, free as they were from the respirator.

Vader rounded a corner and saw the last of the Rebel resistance. A measly _eleven_ of them, taking shelter behind a barricade of tables. They took it in turns to poke heads and blasters up from behind the flimsy metal, firing off a few shots, with a fifty-fifty chance of dropping back down with a hole burned through their skull.

Then, _Leia's_ head poked out from behind the barrier. Vader couldn't see her face, but he _could_ picture the look of determination. Reminiscing over how much trouble he had received from a certain woman bearing _that_ expression almost stopped Vader from reacting in time.

Almost.

A 'Trooper's blaster raised to shoulder height, aiming at the Princess' head. Directly dead on. He fired, a bolt of red energy spitting from the end, hurtling towards Leia. Vader's _daughter_. The shot never hit, of course.

It stopped, mid-air, quivering where it had been halted. Dulled shock emanated from the brunette, she started turning her head, confusion clear, but Vader acted before she could do much else.

The bolt returned with a vengeance against the _scum_ idiotic enough to shoot at such a brilliant young woman, and the nearby blast door was ripped from its hinges, smashing through the barricade, rending in half to avoid Leia, then proceeding to eliminate any 'Troopers on the far side. Barricade swept away, and enemies destroyed, perhaps momentarily, Vader turned his attention fully onto his daughter for the first time.

She was clutching a sharp piece of metal to remain upright, uncaring for the red it sent trickling down her fingertips, and the pain it must have been causing her. The reason for this was a large, open wound that spread down her leg. It started at the top of her knee, ended a centimetre from the bottom of her heel and had burnt through boots and trousers to cause a deep injury. Blood was seeping from it; the partial cauterisation found in energy bolt wounds the only thing preventing her from bleeding out. Her hair was in the familiar buns on the sides of her head, with occasional clumps flying free, whipping about her head agitatedly. It was long; very long. And the shade was so _very_ familiar, that simply seeing it brought painful memories to Vader's mind. Even the way it shone in the harsh light made something catch in his throat.

How had he not seen all this before? _How_?!

Then the moment was over. Leia whipped around, eyes wild and fly-aways snapping. She saw him almost instantly. For a second or two, there was confused hope; some part of her desperately wishing that he was Luke. After all, who else could wield the Force like that, with such mastery and blanket feeling of _they can't hurt you, not if I'm here_ that was so hard to describe? Almost in slow motion, she recognised him.

Even though the pauldron had been shed, his shoulder plates discarded and mask half broken, she still knew who he was.

"_Vader_!" Leia hissed, almost quiet enough for him to pretend he hadn't heard the deadly _hate_ lacing her voice. That couldn't be good. No, _no_; she _couldn't_ fall down his path! "I thought this would be your doing! Killing _innocent refugees_!" The Sith wracked his memories, desperately trying to remember. Suddenly, it came to him. Alderaan. Many who had been off-world flocked to the Alliance, which promised shelter, food and as much safety as they could offer. He could only hope that most had made it out. "And now you're even stabbing your own men in the back? For what? Want to kill me yourself?!"

Her poisonous words lashed the air, not really hurting in the ways that she expected. He wanted to claim he could never hurt her; would never hurt her. That he would protect her. But he couldn't, could he? She was wounded and he had certainly hurt her. Each barbed attack was well deserved.

"From the state of you, I fancy my kriffing chances. Glad to know Luke gave as good as he got, you forsaken _murderer_!" Even though her eyes welled, no tears began to track down her face. Vader tried to focus on that; his daughter's strength, rather than the horrible lie she believed. About her, Rebels sneered at him, sizing up the damage done to his armour, both from the crash and self-inflicted.

Before more words could be said, blaster shots began ricocheting violently from down the hall in front of Vader; behind Leia. 'Troopers almost materialised from the steam, caused by sudden blaster heat boiling the ice. Flashes of red once again shot past Leia's head, one catching a string of hair, cutting it off. She, along with the other Rebels dropped down instinctively, but this time, with no barricade, they were picked off easily.

All but Leia, who had suddenly acquired a meat shield of black armour, sickly white skin and a rapidly whirling crimson blade, did not fall.

Each bolt was deflected, all meeting with weak points in armour, not a single one missed. For each blaster shot fired, one 'Trooper fell.

Unfortunately, it could not last.

Hidden amongst the darkness of the opposite tunnel, a shadow lurked, watching the dancing red whirlwind with curiosity. Behind said spectacle of effortless destruction, the young Princess of Alderaan cowered, head down, clutching her blaster to her, utterly unaware of the unlikely behemoth that had come to her aid. Red shimmered against her browns locks, but not a single bolt got near enough for her to even _feel_ the heat.

It took minutes for an opening to appear, and would have taken far longer if Vader had simply been defending himself. But, appear it did, and the Inquisitor leapt from his place in the darkness to attack, lightsabre twirling into an offensive position effortlessly.

Vader had just taken a bolt to the chest. With his pauldron, it wouldn't have done anything. Even if he were slightly more concentrated, it wouldn't have meant anything. Certainly, if he wasn't forced to maintain his immobile defence, it would never have even hit him. But, protecting Leia came before any chances, how significant or deadly they may be, of harm to him. Vader absorbed the pain and swung his lightsabre up, instinctively, to block the next bolt, twisting slightly to line up for another-

The Force _screamed_ at him, ripping his concentration to shreds, tearing it from his daughter, from his _protection_, and onto the blur moving towards him at breakneck speed. Red rose to meet red, but only just in time.

The two plasma blades crackled against each other for a moment, and then Vader reacted on instinct. He brought up a boot and snap kicked the attacker, straight in the chest. There was no way to evade, as it had still been suspended in the air when it swung its blade down, hoping to carve through Vader; from right shoulder down to his left hip. Human, he thought, from the sound of ribs breaking. The Inquisitor flew through the air, but reached out the Force swiftly, correcting its course, reaching the wall and barrelling back toward the Sith Lord with an assisted jump.

In the time it took for the Inquisitor to reach the wall, Vader was starting to panic. He couldn't defend Leia from 'Troopers _and_ an Inquisitor, highly trained as this one seemed to be (for the Inquisitorius' standards, anyway). But, he had to defend again before he could think up a way to remove one of the two threats from the equation. A Force push, maybe? Knock the Stormtroopers unconscious, and then deal with the _scum_ that dared to challenge him.

Block, block, parry, roundhouse kick. Deflect, deflect, _deflect_; in every spare moment he had. More and more bolts got through his defence as time went on. Leia was still lying on the floor, desperately firing from behind Vader, a surprising amount hitting. There wasn't _time_ to think. There was only time to protect his daughter, everything else fell to the wayside as Vader's extensive training took over, muscle memory the only thing stopping him from collapsing, or tripping, or taking a sabre through his neck.

Inevitably, something had to give way.

Vader twisted to bring his blade up in a parry, crimson light flickering across the hall as he moved. A single bolt managed to seek out a weak area. It wormed its way into the miniscule crack between back plate and arm padding. If he hadn't carelessly discarded the armour-weave cape in his frantic flight through Echo Base, the tiny weakness would have been well protected. Even without the extra protective layer, it was a miracle that the bolt found its mark.

Pain tore through his arm, burning almost completely through it, and the energy discharge tearing the bone from its socket, shredding flesh as it was pulled apart by the rampaging laser. The Sith Lord gasped and stumbled sideways, only just managing to spin and bring his arm up to prevent himself from being beheaded. The Inquisitor loomed over him, a vicious smirk upon his face the only warning, and then the screaming in his arm turned into burning lava as a steel-tipped boot landed in a Force-assisted kick. Only what little remained of Vader's shredded armour kept the now-useless lump from detaching completely and spinning across the room, spraying blood everywhere. Not that it would be noticed amongst such carnage.

Vader was down, knocked onto his side and left arm useless. He swayed slightly, either from blood loss or the sheer agony of what had been done. But, if the Emperor's frequent disciplining had taught him anything, it was that pain meant _nothing_.

The Sith moved to shove himself upright again, uncaring of how it sent rivers of molten lead coursing through what remained of his left side, but he was too late.

Somewhere behind him came a soft "_oh_". Like a pillow being hit. Like finding shelter from the midday desert sun.

Anakin turned over, blaster bolts spraying about his head, metres from their mark. That did not concern him.

Lying, in the practical garb of a Rebel, brown hair spilling from its confines, lay Leia. Her eyes were still open, mouth slightly parted in a way that felt almost _visceral_. A hole had been burned through her clothes and marked the pale skin beneath. It was just to the side of her heart, and each spasm of her body, like red tissue, jolted her still-peaceful face about on the floor.

Red was already pooling under her, eyes twitching and confused, hands coming up to the entry point, her fingers beginning to stain as they touched it.

For a moment, Anakin didn't understand. He didn't get it. Because it couldn't happen. Not again. Surely, the Force wasn't _that_ cruel?

Apparently, it was.

Pain, rage, _love_ and many more emotions besides welled up in him. Vader didn't even bother trying to process them. Each one was flung, desperately, _hatefully_ at the enemy. Any enemy; any _life-form_ still on the planet. Each one was torn asunder, crimson spraying from them as arteries were rent and bones twisted into splinters.

Within seconds, Hoth became a barren wasteland. X-wings and TIE fighters fell from the sky, cockpits filled with sloshing sentient paste.

As the trailing fires slowly faded, Vader simply sat there. He had lifted himself up, dizzy from blood loss. He pulled himself forwards, as quickly as he was able, to slump besides Leia.

She looked up and saw him, eyes bulging with instinctive terror and limbs wheeling about as she tried to shove herself away. Each movement was ineffective, and only served to kill her quicker.

"I am your father." Vader eventually said, once he grew close enough for her to hear, voice faint as it was without the vocoder. "Luke was your brother. I want to help." He didn't really know what to say other than that. It made her lie still, at least.

Vader gently ripped a piece of cloth from her clothes (none of his own would serve adequately) and began to apply pressure in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding. Something in him already knew the outcome of this meeting. Years of war had taught him the consequences of such a wound many, many times.

Leia stared up at him, automatically protesting the truth of his words. "Bail Organa… But my dad is Bail Organa?"

Quietly, Vader shook his head. "No. He was- _is_ Anakin Skywalker. Luke was your brother."

She couldn't refuse the truth of his statement.

"But you're _Vader_…! You're a monster and a coward and the Emperor's lackey. I _hate_ you," Leia said, only managing to inject the last sentence with any venom.

"I know." The Sith hummed at her, "I know, my child. I understand. I hate me, too."

Leia stared up, trying to search the two blue eyes she was presented with. Everything was just a little foggy, and the edge had begun to blur on everything but those eyes and their hauntingly familiar shade. "What's… happening?" Was finally croaked out, tears which had welled before finally beginning to fall.

"Nothing. All this is going to stop soon, and you will be free, my child." He brushed the hair gently from his daughter's face, worried at the lack of protest, but not being able to stop himself. "_Depur's chains cannot tie a soul, young one_," He said, the words seeming to drift down through generations of rough, kindly voices until they landed upon Leia's ears, soothing her though she had no idea why.

The Princess lay in Vader's arms for a few moments longer, lacking the energy to talk, until she left, and all that remained was a shell.

**AN: Hope you enjoyed this...?**

**If you did, reviews are always welcome and any criticism is welcome! If you decided, miraculously, "holy Force this writer writes shit I love", then following me on AO3 would be your best bet; I'm most active over there, and have a series for all my Vader drabbles if you're interested ;)**

**Anyway, shameless self-promo over: go read your next fic! Thanks for reading!**

**~Omsie**


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